Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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Listen to the podcast: Out of Office
Replies are Evil. 
[Due to technical difficulties, this week's podcast is a rerun, originally
published June 13, 2005. OOF's are still evil. 
-Leo]
Transcript
This is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary, and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
Yes, you heard right: most out of office replies are evil.
Out of office replies, often termed "oof" or oof for "out of facility," are those automated replies you get to an email you send someone when they are ... well, out of the office. They'll tell you something like, "I'm out of the office this week, and not checking email" or something along those lines.
Seems like a good idea, right? Helpful, even. And it can be good idea, IF two conditions are met:
1) The out-of-office reply is sent to each sender exactly once, no matter how many times they send email.
2) The out-of-office reply is never sent to mailing lists.
For some corporations, there's an optional third rule: the out-of-office reply is never sent outside the company.
So, where does the evil come in? Certainly when either rules one and two are broken - or even worse, when both are. If rule one is broken, you annoy everyone who might need to send you an email for your eventual return... no mater how many. If rule two is broken, your reply goes out to a list of people whether or not the discussion had anything to do with you. And if BOTH are broken, every message to a mailing list causes your out-of-office message to get sent ... again and again and again ... flooding the mailing list. That's Evil.
But wait, there's more.
You might just have told anyone who drops you an email that you're on a trip and your home is available for burglary.
And...
You've just replied to any SPAM that you receive, thus validating your email address. Prepare to get LOTS more spam.
In general, OOFs are a good idea that, 99% of the time, have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Just say no.
Leave me a comment on this podcast. Visit askleo.info and enter 8646 in the go to article number box on the home page. I'd love to hear from you.
This is a presentation of askleo.info, a free online technical question and answer service. Hundreds of questions and answers are online and ready to help solve your computer problems. New questions and answers are added daily.
That's askleo.info.
Article C3078 - July 8, 2007
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Why,when I tried to listen to the podcast of this article, did I find myself at the rowdy.com site?
Posted by: Natalie Kehr at July 13, 2007 10:42 PM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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No idea. It's not due to anything I've done here. I'd check for spyware.
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at July 15, 2007 3:48 PMkdJdpFwY7lq4yR5aPjsooi0=
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"your reply goes out to a list of people whether or not the discussion had anything to do with you". If that's the case, why did you receive the original email. And when I receive an automated message, I simply hold further mail until they return. And spammers are not listening to your return mail. They already have your address.
Posted by: Chuck at July 16, 2007 7:47 AM-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
> "your reply goes out to a list of people whether or not the discussion had
> anything to do with you". If that's the case, why did you receive the
> original email.
Because you're on a mailing list.
> And spammers are not listening to your return mail. They already have your
> address.
Not true. Some spammers are definitely looking at bounce or reply messages to
know whether or not an email address is legitimate. One technique they use is
to send email to thousands of "possible" email addresses and see which ones
work. An OOF tells them they have a working email address
Leo
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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at July 16, 2007 10:53 AMSYOaXwzKp7bH8RosUM/hqlM=
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